Saturday, August 12, 2017

Just over a month ago, the OnePlus 5 burst onto the scene with a storm of controversy. From the unexpected quality of the cameras, to the benchmark enhancing passing straight through the infamous and uncommon “jelly scrolling” issue, supposedly caused by the device’s screen being mounted upside down. If our Moto Z2 Force unit is any indication, though, it looks like the OnePlus 5 is not alone this year.

By the first weekend after the launch of OnePlus’ new flagship, forums and discussion groups were littered with posts from users who either noticed the jelly scrolling, or could swear their device was unaffected. While many claimed their unit was exempt, the jelly scrolling was ultimately tracked down to the display panel intentionally being mounted “upside down”. Likely caused by the way the screen panel refreshes its content – top to bottom for most displays, but bottom to top for the OP5 – this issue annoyed a lot of users and prompted at least some to return their devices. While the OnePlus 5 appears to have been the first phone with this issue to start a controversy, it does not appear to be neither the first nor the last phone to feature the problem, as my Moto Z2 Force is displaying the same screen jelly behavior.

While I personally have not used a OnePlus 5, I was quick to notice the issue across many YouTube review videos, especially in the app drawer, Twitter application, and the settings. When I unboxed my Moto Z2 Force, within 5 minutes of using the phone I knew it also had the issue as there is clear warping occurring while scrolling through the app drawer and settings menu. So I took out my HTC U11 and started recording the display and it can clearly be seen in the video linked below, especially noticeable if you look at the word “Display” while it is scrolling. I then got curious and also recorded my Galaxy S8+ display to see if the issue was there, and I noticed something interesting. If you look closely you can see that the panel on the Moto Z2 Force actually refreshes in the opposite direction than the Galaxy S8+, an indication that the display is mounted in an inverted orientation.

It is difficult to imagine that both OnePlus and Lenovo engineers have missed an issue that is so easily viewable to end users, so it’s almost certain it was conscious decision executed to better arrange the phone’s internals. It is not clear if all of last generation of Motorola phones have this issue as well, though teardowns showboth Z Force models have their display IC at the bottom of the phone instead of the top, just like on the OnePlus 5. It’s also true that Motorola users have complained about the “jelly effect” in previous phones as well (which also have the display connector at the bottom), though without much attention from the blogosphere at large (though TheVerge‘s Dan Seifert did point out the jelly scrolling in his Droid Turbo review back in 2014). So if you’ve used previous Motorola phones affected by it in the past, and haven’t noticed the quirk or haven’t been annoyed by it, this is probably not a deal-breaker.

Have you been bothered by “Jelly Scrolling? on your phone? Let us know in the comments!